Blogging for a second income - does anyone else here do this?

tobyct

Hi,

I have had a website for a few years but didn't put a site up till end of last year. I didn't start marketing myself until January of this year. Last month I had over 1000 unique visitors, at the beginning of the year I just had friends and family visiting!

The trick is to get your name out there in the wild. Output = Input

My site is for photography and graphics.

I use the social networking sites. Linkedin, technorati, digg, friendfeed, stumbleupon, facebook, twitter, flickr, etc.

All these will have links that lead to my main site. I also post comments on other peoples blogs and sites (most comment systems have the option of putting in your web address - make sure they relate to your site though) so these again will lead back to my site. Remember, output = input. After a while of posting on other peoples blogs you will start to feel a part of a community, and hopefully you will have some bloglove back.

Don't expect people to come to your site if you don't put your self out there.

My biggest referrals are from Twitter and stumbleupon. I use wordpress and use plugins that automatically post my new blog posts to all these sites for me (one post goes to many sites and many audiences).

Try and post regularly as the search engines will rank sites that have activity, over ones that are quite. If I haven't got any photoshoot images to go up then I just snap away some shots of my local area and post those.

I also use google analytical tools to keep track of all my statistics. These are free from google.

A bit of a ramble for my first post here but saw this thread from the email and wanted to add my 2 pence worth.

Hope there is something useful there.

Feel free to email/pm me if you have any questions. I am more than happy to help.

fairynuff27

Hi all,

Couldn't resist my two-penneth worth here! I've been blogging over 18 months and started with an impersonal blog designed to showcase my ebay sales and drive up traffic to my ebay shop. I built up traffic by leaving comments on other blogs and getting involved in forums, and soon found my blog took a more personal slant as people made requests of me and as unpleasant happenings in my life spilled over into my blog posts. Unbeknownst to me, my emotional outpourings became self-help posts for a lot of readers going through similar events, and the word spread.

I know I don't have a huge following, but vary between the high hundreds and thousand mark daily. I blog for pleasure, which alleviates any pressure, and have a formula that I fall back on when uninspired - a top tip I highly recommend. Most importantly for me, I have made friends here and abroad, some of whom have spilled over into real life. Through these I have received gifts, invitations and set up some fabulous fun projects.

The money-making I have achieved through my blog is not something I have chased.

• I have used the relationships I have built up with longterm followers to forward traffic through to my ebay shop and my secondary, more commercial blogs.
• I have been approached to review items for a fee that are in-keeping with my general content.

I highly recommend joining up with blogging networks (who often run regular internal promotions to drive up your reader numbers as well as offering useful advice) and I have recently upped my readership hugely simply by joining Network Blogs on facebook and posting a live feed everytime I post a new post to my wall! It's amazing how many of my friends didn't even know my blog was there, or didn't get around to reading it until prompted!

Also, if you are looking to write for cash, just having your name out there can demonstarte ability, committment and readership. Once you've demonstrated a good few months of regular posting there are plenty of pro-blogging jobs available for application!

Eek - that was an essay! Hope some of it was useful!

ThinkingOfLinking

Great thread....I've been considering this for a long time, and also wanted to become an Amazon Affiliate to earn even more money on it; I think the OP in particular has really given me the impetus to get started!!

atalooseend

I started designing information websites and putting adsense on them a few years ago. I now make about 200 quid a month. I recommend getting your own web hosting that allows add on domains. My hosting allows me 6 domain names on the same hosting package. That means you can have 6 websites for the same hosting price.

Always choose domain names that are the keywords that people put into a search engine to find the subject of your blog. For example if your blog is about shampoo for dogs your domain name should be shampoofordogs. Try and get the .com domain unless your blog is specifically for the uk. I use the website bustaname to find the best domain names for my blogs.

Then install the great free blogging software Wordpress on your web hosting. I recommend choosing web hosting that has free software installation. Some companies have software called Fantastico that will install Wordpress for you. Otherwise you will have to download Wordpress and FTP it to your web space. There are a few more steps but there is a great guide on the Wordpress site.

Once you have Wordpress installed find a free theme for your website. There are literally millions of free Wordpress themes out there that take all the work out of web design. I would show you some of my blogs to give you an idea of the range of free themes but it's against the terms of this site.

Adsense is still the best money earner but I would also look at affiliate links. There are plenty of companies that will handle everything for you and give you the code to put on your site. Once someone makes a purchase after clicking your website you get a % of the money they paid.

Anyway I hope that info helps you.

suparman

I have just started blogging. I was going to suggest a thread to go on each others blog, and click their ads to increase traffic and Adsense revenue

littlemrtinkle

stupid qn but how do you get money from blogs. I create a blog on blogger for example. fill it with regular content, advertise to get people to look at my blog but then how due i make money?

kms26

I have just set up a blog but im a bit stumped as to where i should go from here. I have a basic blog with Blogger, how do i add affilates to it?

I love celebrity gossip and soaps and would love to blog about this but would there be a legal issue there? For example if i commented on something thats is in a magazine article would there be any legal issues there?

Also i would like to put on about freebies i have found and received how do i do that? Just add the links?

hmmmmmmmm a bit confused any help would be much appreciated....

josethpauline

How are you doin' guys? you can call me pauline
I am a new member of this forum and I hope I'll have the chance to interact with you all!
i like to learn more on blogging! i hope i could get more informations in here!
have a nice day!

suparman

How much has everyone been earning from their advertising revenue? Does anyone want to set up some sort of traffic exchange? I'll click your ads if you click mine?

jollygee

Amandaf says that it has taken 3 years of hard work to earn £150 - £180 per month!!

Am I missing something? That equates to £2.50 - £3.00 per hour assuming you spend 2 hours a day blogging! Better off staying in bed and make that same money by saving on heat and light.

Sell tangibles - when I needed some money a few years ago I made £60.00 to £100.00 per day selling hairdressers scissors direct to salons (£20.00 profit per pair of scissors!!)

The trouble with the internet is that all the usual business sense seems to go out of the window - I couldn't be flaffed messing around with such paltry sums.